


to be held

by ceedawkes



Category: Midsommar (2019)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21786271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceedawkes/pseuds/ceedawkes
Summary: pelle doesn’t have to write out her star chart to know that the stars dani was born under are the greatest fit he’s ever seen. josh and christian and mark, they fit well enough, they can be maneuvered to slip into the places ordained for them, but DANI... || midsommar fic, pelle/dani
Relationships: Dani Ardor/Pelle (Midsommar)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 252
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	to be held

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naiade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naiade/gifts).



The first time they meet, Pelle asks Dani when and where she was born. It’s one of the many parties they’ll see each other at during the course of that winter and spring, and Dani is already weary, a quiet hanger-on to Christian’s loud, boisterous presence. Pelle asks when she was born, and Dani smiles, then frowns, then smiles again. 

“Early. The morning, I think?” She’s still smiling, but her eyes move, looking for Christian among the crowd. “Six or seven. I’d have to ask my mom to be sure.” It’s before the tubes and the emails, before the mention of family has Dani hollow-mouthed and howling with grief, but her eyes darken all the same. Pelle can’t remember if Christian had ever mentioned anything about his girlfriend’s family.

He can’t remember if Christian had mentioned anything about Dani at all. 

Dani’s cheeks are red from her two or three beers when they flit into each other again later, and her eyes are bright as they rest on Pelle’s bearded, smiling face. “Six twenty-four,” she slurs a little, swaying towards him, one arm coming to rest on his shoulder. “I texted mom. I was born at six twenty-four.”

Pelle’s smile deepens, and he reaches up, cups Dani’s elbow to steady her. She’s a sprouting sapling in a windstorm, and without something to cling to, she bows and she leans and her roots are strained with each gust. He doesn’t have to write out her star chart to know that this last piece fits, that the stars Dani was born under are the greatest fit he’s ever seen. Josh and Christian and Mark, they fit well enough, they can be maneuvered to slip into the places ordained for them, but  _ Dani. _

Dani is a sapling, and her roots are deeper than even she knows. Pelle’s hand burns from daring to touch her, even like this, even starved of the sun she deserves. He wonders if she knows how great she could become, what potential she carries around behind her polite smile, behind her laughter at Christian’s jokes.

When that call about her parents and sister comes, when Dani grovels and screams on the floor and against Christian’s arms, when her momentous, dazzling grief cannot be soothed away, Pelle knows she must have no idea. If she had even the slightest idea what she contains, she would incinerate Christian with the force of it.

_ Wait until you meet her _ , he writes his brothers and sisters, half-listening to Christian complain and Mark deride and Josh roll his eyes about how it’s already been two months, does she really still cry every night, does she really wake up vomiting and sobbing.  _ Wait until you see this girl.  _

* * *

Human bodies take a long, long time to fully burn, and the air is full of inky smoke and the scent of charred meat for hours. The  Hårga remain until the wailing ceases, then filter away to bathe, to rest, to refresh themselves. Only a few remain, attending their May Queen as she stands and watches the temple burn and burn. 

She is smiling, and Pelle feels amazed again that he dared to reach out, to touch her. Unheld, without home, the little sapling is no more. Dani smiles and the flames curl back from it’s brightness, from the force of her power. Siv and Ulf had written Pelle back, cautioning him to not be too wholehearted in his pursuing of Dani, to focus on the new blood he was required to bring back. They had told him to be mindful of what failure could mean. 

They had been wrong. Dani is a Queen among queens, with the other women of the Hårga clustered around her, each one close enough to touch her flowering cape, but not a one daring. Beside her, they are dandelions beside the sun, but she rests within their protective half-circle, and watches Christian burn. Pelle’s throat is thick with ashes, and he longs to reach out for her again, to cradle her face and kiss her wondering mouth again and again. 

As if hearing his innermost thoughts, Dani turns, her rigor smile fading a little as she recognizes him, bedecked in greenery, a parallel to her blossomed finery. Her eyes are hollow again, and Pelle steps forward without thinking, holds out his arms. The fire is beginning to die down to ashes, and soon all that’ll be left is smouldering coals and blistered bones, which the men will rake away, will spread across the field. What remains of the outsiders will be crushed to ash, scattered to the wind.

Pelle takes a second step, and Dani’s flowered cape parts like a chrysalis to release her to his arms.

She’s shuddering still, when he pulls her closer, and her golden hair is warm against his cheek. This close to the fire, he’s amazed she hadn’t singed -- but then, she’s the May Queen, nothing in this forest, in this commune, in this world could hurt her. She’s the queen of a thousand Midsommar’s, the outsider, the newblood come to bless the Hårga with her very presence.

It had taken mere hours for the elders to see that, even after the near-disastrous attestup a,  even after being faced with Christian’s betrayal. Dani had looked Pelle in the face when he asked her  _ do you feel held  _ and he’d known the answer was no. The answer has always been no. 

Even now, in front of the temple, with Dani shivering against his chest, her heartbeat like a bird, her cheeks reddened by the nearness of the fire, Pelle has the sense he could scarcely begin to hold her long enough and tight enough to make up for everything that had come before. He lifts a hand, smooths it over the birdsegg shape of her skull, sends a couple petals fluttering to the ground, and Dani’s hands clutch into his shirt in response. 

They stand like that for a long time, as the sun retreats from the sky, as the moon and stars take their place, as the fire rages, then smolders, then dies. The men come with rakes, turn over ash and coal and bone, and the field grows grey with it and still Dani and Pelle stand. It’s only when one of the women -- Maja, her red hair pulled back, one hand resting always on her abdomen -- steps forward that Dani pulls away.

In the moonlight, Dani’s eyes are nearly silver, and they rest on the younger woman for a long moment, with the warring of emotions she brings from the world outside -- jealousy, hurt, betrayal, anger. In the world Dani had left, she should hate this woman. Maja looks up at her, tenderly, and waits for it to pass. 

And, after a moment, Dani reaches out, slowly, fingers trembling, until Maja takes her hand and guides it to rest over her stomach. The other woman exhale, and Pelle finds he is as well, in relief at Dani’s understanding. Whatever purpose Christian had -- to Maja, to the Hårga, to Dani -- had been fulfilled already. None of the rituals had been for him, not Maja’s deflowering, not her pregnancy, not even the sacrifice. It had all been for the Hårga. 

It had all been  _ about _ Dani.

Pelle is conscious of this, even as Dani steps back and turns to him, as she raises up on her tiptoes and takes his face in her hands and kisses him. Behind her, the Hårga women take the four corners of her flowered cape and pull, shaking it out into a wide, encompassing net of green, with breathing, heartbeating blossoms at each woven corner. It’s large enough to cover the field of ash, to blanket it in the May Queen’s blessing, and this is what they do as Pelle lets Dani lead him away.

She is a sapling-turned-oak, a star-blessed being, the bringer of fertility and new growth and new beginnings. Her hand in his is small and determined and it clutches tightly. Pelle will be reminded then, and every day remaining that Dani’s every choice, every movement will not be about him, but about her.

There are more rituals to be done, more for Dani to bless, more days of Midsommar to come. But under the moon, the May Queen kisses Pelle again, his reward for going and seeking and returning, his meaning caught inside her soft mouth, and he is lost in worship of her again.


End file.
